Then return [your] vision twice again.[Your] vision will return to you humbled while it is fatigued – Qur'an (67:4)

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Monthly Archives: May 2012

Qamber is enthralling in the winters. The mornings mesmerize me when the calmness of it fuses with the fog and cool air. The sun begging the darkness to go away, the sound of the wind which I hear with all my senses and the aroma of hot tea in my grandmother’s kitchen make me want to diffuse in the morning charm and be a part of it. Qamber is one of the towns in Qamber-Shahdadkot district with almost four hundred thousand people near the city of Larkana. The streets are filled with silence and slumber at the dawn. I had seen few people, mostly old in the mosque at Fajr prayers whenever my bed had not firmly caught me during the last month. My business was in Larkana, conducting financial audit of a national bank. On weekends I leave my team staying at the hotel to enjoy Saturdays and Sundays with my grandparents in Qamber. It is a drive of around forty minutes. My grandfather insisted that he sends me a car to pick me since the road joining Larkana and Qamber is not nearer to safe. I have heard many instances of robberies, kidnapping and even murders. But the facts had not actually created many fears in me, and so I was always considering it worthwhile to use the van that runs along the route. But I had to lie to my grandparents that I had an official vehicle for travelling. The way is mostly farms all along with a village at about half the distance. We had always stopped at that village for tea and pakoras when all of us family members travelled together in school vacations. It was a solitary road all the way and traffic moved in both directions at high speeds. Some branches turned left or right to other villages kilometres away from the main road. Those faraway lights of the villages at night used to haunt me when I was a kid. Faraway things have always haunted me. I like nearness. That fear of mine is so childish. Sometimes I have unfathomable fears and sometimes hopes, the mere thought of which enraptures me. I remember dreaming about a faraway planet inhabited by us, the humans but on the verge of destruction. We were being evacuated in some sort of space-ships. The last space-ship left without some of us including me and never came back. The hopelessness was even more than the joy I had found on realizing it was a dream. Those faraway lights made me an object of despair. The vast emptiness of farms before them made those lights unreal. They didn’t exist I had imagined as a kid. If you travelled that road at night you will see them after every few kilometres. Hopelessness is even more terrifying then the death it self. Perhaps it is a virtual death of an entity innate in a human heart and an element of his soul. Nearness, be it in time or space made me less fearful and still does. Some fears never leave you. They flow in your veins with the blood, even after their birth-time , the childhood has vanished and the most euphoric situations or the most intense discipline of your thoughts or the most logical of science’s theories do not help you live alone from them. The fear of unknown continues to exist. Besides, what have I seen in this great planet earth? What have I experienced so far? Have I known those treacherous paths of mountains which leave thousands of adventurers trying to cross them dead? Have I seen those particles of sand which are heated by the mightiest power of sun in the colossal vastness and loneliness of the deserts? Do I even have imagined the experiences of those whale-hunters of nineteenth century? People who haven’t seen anything deserve the fear. Not the time but the adventure of life separates you from your fears. Caught in the battlefield of such thoughts I realized we had touched the outer most area of the town and just passed the first two hotels inside the town gate. Now it is important that I tell you about how the hotels in Qamber look like. They are basically dhaabas. The hotels in outer side of the town are large with many seats inside the main building with a not-so-large television in the centre for viewing the most famous Indian movies. Outside there are benches placed for people to enjoy the bonfire kind of arrangement in winters.People sit in their own groups of two,three. Most of the people ride motorcycles and there are only few gas stations. The main part of the town itself is very congested and extremely busy at daytime. The hotels in the main town are small and very hot in summers. But one thing is common, be it summer or winter or outer or inner hotels, the delicious tea. The van dropped me at the stop and I started walking towards my grandparents house.

The Saturday morning I woke up at half past four. I was amazed at my ability to wake up early whenever in Qamber. Grandmother and grandfather were still asleep. I came out of the room on the first floor. It was my uncle’s room and he was out of town on business. I went straight to the roof and lied down on the bed placed there for it was used in summers by my uncle. The sight of the sky, the diamond studded black cloth, was unbelievably beautiful. The stars were so many and so close. It was perfection. That was what God has spoken of in Quran. My sight travelled millions of miles and came back without even a hint of an error in the master crafting of the roof of earth. As moments built on moments I remained oblivious to the cold wind blowing the very soul of my body and my jacket was no more effective.

As I stood up, I heard a noise of brick falling on the ground. I turned back and froze, froze to half death.

A black and red cloud of dust was forming in the middle of the space. It gradually took a shape, a shape of a human body, a woman. Slowly the cloud of dust grew towards the ground and in form of a robe. Then the cloud grew upwards to about the height of six feet and took form of waist then chest and shoulders and a head full of hairs which were waist long. I could not see the face. It was hidden. I felt like I was wearing no clothes. I was ice cold. I could not move my eyelid while the cloud took various shapes. Now it was a complete woman in a red and black robe with whitest hands I have ever seen. No more skin was visible. My eyes saw what I had never dreamt of in my wildest dreams. Closing my eyes was beyond my power. In fact, any signalling of my neurons, any movement of my parts, any flow of blood , any beat of my heart was beyond my power. The blood had stopped. It was motionless state of inscrutable fear. It was a foreboding of death. The cloud of dust in the shape of a woman diffused in the thin air and re-emerged as was in its original shape. I saw it turning into an axe. It diffused again. Some ten thousand pins were being inserted into my body and then plucked out forcefully. The cloud was still there, now in the shape of a man , very short man wearing a pirate’s hat and carrying a sword. But again there was no face, just the body. I was estranged at myself for still breathing. With the man diffusing in the wind, my consciousness gave up and i fell on the ground and the stars were at the iris of my eyes……

That was a fear of things nearer than those faraway lights which had never made me lose my power to blink.

the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs

the capacity. i have that too. should i use it always? i don’t know. i look for reason (i cannot continue this sentence as : and most of the times it is there) and most of the times the reason is sleeping. as sleep of reason creates monsters, some originate within me. should i try to wake it up instead? what if it is a monster itself? so i let it sleep. then happened a day when it woke. i was in the same room. behind the curtain, breathing slowly and quietly. i had a perception that it is a monster now.it rubbed away all the sleepiness from its eyes and looked in my direction. a chill passed through my frail body. it had occurred to it that someone is there. i could not read its expressions through the thick curtain. i covered my mouth with my hands and a sweat drop hit the carpet. i saw it diffuse into the brown. the reason was now active. it stood up and walked towards the mirror. the reason stood there for almost three quarters of an hour. i was completely perspired now. but the fear had made me oblivious to senses.

Fortune

which occurs beyond one’s control without regard to one’s will, intention or desired result

control. i have that too. will, intention, desire, i have everything. human beings will rather will nothingness than having nothing to will-Nietzsche. i always will. and i will continue to will. but what happens is fortune. sometimes in garb of my will, sometimes raw. fortune is as random as the thought. the reason turned at last. it dropped its robe and i looked at its genderless body. it drew the blinds on the huge window to view his castle. after a deep breath, it walked towards the closet and put on another robe, a little shiny. it looked at itself in the mirror again. after few minutes he took some steps back and lifted a vase from the table. it threw the vase on the mirror. my heart came to my throat. the mirror broke with a terrible shrieking sound. then the reason shouted with all its might and power. the hair on my body stood up. it calmed down and put its hands on its head. meanwhile a wandering insect, the THOUGHT, bite my foot. my neurons were not sleeping anymore and i made sound due to the very familiar pain. the reason heard me and came in my direction. i was half-dead now. i could feel its anger. it forcefully pulled the curtain i was hiding behind. i could not believe what i saw. it was the faceless FORTUNE.

Tonight the moon is in shambles on the rippling water that I break with ill-placed pebbles. When things grow twisted and gnarled and I am not nearly as guilty as I should be, I throw small things at big things hoping to prove that it is possible to be enveloped and the same.

no we cannot be one. no two brains can think alike. no minds can match. i cannot be you, you cannot be me. no matter how much you emphasize on the power of unity and togetherness, i cannot unite. differences? you think we can resolve our differences peacefully?let us not even talk about that. no two souls can be one. ultimate union is impossible my dear, just like absolute freedom. individuality is what prevails. you can convince me with your ideas, you can hypnotize me but you can never assimilate in existence of my soul, how can you expect me to? besides what can we do if just assuming we are unionized? can i, you or we do something more than we could do alone. we would not do any better. move that stone with our eyes ,can we? talk about union that powerful…….. but whatever the impossibility i like you and your eyes.

since before i loved you,
i dreamt of your eyes:
two slices of blue gulf
stripped along the horizon,
glistening
with a million years of rain.

i wanted them before i knew you,
i’m sure…..!

and then Ammi calmed down and stopped shouting at me. i heard her saying get lost to A WALL i was leaning on. finally the deviations left me in my consciousness.